Commercial Property Rental: Serviced vs Conventional

Posted on Monday, 07 July 2014 09:35AM by Artful Lodger

If you’re setting up your own business, or are simply looking for new premises for your current company, then choosing to rent rather than buy is probably your primary choice. Buying is expensive, and doesn’t afford you flexibility. There is of course one more thing to decide; whether you want to go down the traditional route of renting an empty building, or if you’d prefer to have a serviced building that gives you more.

Serviced OfficesNow, serviced can mean quite a lot of things, so it’s important to understand what you’re looking at before you weigh things up. In most cases, renting serviced offices will mean that you get things like cleaning, security and utilities included in the cost of rental. More prestigious offerings such as Landmark PLC have concierge services. You can quite literally set up your office in a matter of days; all you need to do is turn up with your computer.

The major benefit of choosing a services office is that you don’t need to worry about managing all of the support services. Maintaining security contracts, cleaning contracts, and managing the payment and use of utilities can be a time consuming job – one which you may well not have any space for. This is a particularly important point for small businesses or even sole traders who need business premises, but can’t or don’t want to hire additional maintenance staff.

The other bonus is flexibility. With many providers, you can quickly expand and contract the amount of space you’re taking up, and increase the level of service along with it. This is ideal for smaller companies that feel they may have shifting fortunes in the coming years.

In reality, there are few drawbacks to choosing serviced offices. If you have a particular design style in mind, or you need very specific equipment, then you may have a hard time finding something that you like. This won’t be a problem for the majority of companies though.

Cost is also the other factor. It’s likely to cost you more to rent somewhere that is full serviced, which will put some people off, but it’s generally a lot cheaper to have all of the services included within the monthly rental cost than it is to pay for each service separately.

Ultimately, the decision to choose serviced or traditional will depend on your business. As a general rule, smaller companies will feel the benefit a lot more.